Since the advent of the flex car, the sugar-alcohol field has benefited from a new cycle in sugar cane planting to produce fuel alcohol, not only as a substitute for petroleum due to the increase in international prices, but also for reasons related to climate change, since ethanol is an alternative renewable, less polluting energy source. Of the energy sources used, sugar cane has become an important energy matrix, overcoming hydraulic energy, just behind petroleum.
Not only has the consumption of fuel alcohol considerably increased sugar cane planting, but it has also increased the consumption of all other derivatives from such culture. Sugar, food and even its residues are used as an energy source, such as bagasse, which is used as fuel for boilers, cellulose production and feed for confined cattle.
Despite the economic benefits presented by the expansion of the sugar-alcohol field, environmental impacts caused by burning have been a cause for worry. For that reason, there are laws forbidding the burning of the plants at the harvesting stage. Said laws, despite not having a deadline to come into force, have become a tool enabling considerable changes in agricultural implements used for harvesting sugar cane without the stage of burning its leaves.
Considering the current state of the law and the targeting of small and medium producers of products derived from sugar cane, the industrial field of agricultural implements has concentrated efforts to develop new machines for harvesting sugar cane without burning, as previously done.
The state of the art offers a range of machines for this purpose, such as those taught by the documents: BR102014032269, BR112015031412, BR202014014302, BR202014014292, BR102014005942, BR102013016989, BR202013016074, BR202013013322, BR202013013145, BR102013010820, BR202012021829, BR202012020652, BR102012016510, BR102012013599, BR102012009691, BR102012007864, BR102012006658, BR112012031090, BR1107105, BR1107149, BR1106521, BR9101818, BR1102255, BR1003832, BR9000243, BR1000130, BR1000129, BR0905146, BR0905546, BR0902597, BR0901847, BR0900868, BR0900660, BR0924091, BR0803094, BR0804386, BR8801206, BR8800901, BR0800094, BR0718357, BR0709365, BR0603248, BR0601956, BR0602115, BR0602398, BR8600817, BR0505162, BR0504922, BR0505161, BR0504923, BR0504925, BR8400814, BR8400083, BR0302376, BR0201867, BR0106044, BR0105615, BR0105023, BR9904482, BR7900025, BR9802986, BR9702997, BR9704191, BR9704373, BR7502738, BR9500633, BR7500199, BR9400226, BR9303089, BR9303218, BR9204564, BR9204012, BR9206252, BR9102016, BR7100333, BR9001917, BR8903260, BR8706619, BR8703409, BR8406779, BR8406061, BR8401328, BR8304418, BR8204617, BR8202642, BR8202643, BR8006949, BR7805293, BR7905238, BR7901280, BR7805303, BR7802657, BR7705347, BR7702546, BR7700258, BR7607340, BR7604564, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,510,679, 6,363,700, 6,272,820, 6,230,477, 6,226,969, 6,076,340, 5,724,797, 5,488,820, 5,485,716, 5,463,856, 5,379,577, 5,330,114, 5,303,533, 5,191,759, 5,157,904, 5,138,819, 5,131,216, 5,129,219, 5,092,110, 5,031,392, 4,924,662, 4,897,986, 4,783,952, 4,722,174, 4,646,512, 4,584,824, 4,574,567, 4,555,896, 4,550,552, 4,512,142, 4,483,130, 4,483,129, 4,471,602, 4,470,244, 4,443,999, 4,426,826, 4,408,441, 4,407,111, 4,295,325, 4,272,947, 4,270,337, 4,232,775, 4,196,569, 4,194,344, 4,173,110, 4,170,098, 4,165,596, 4,154,047, 4,152,883, 4,099,365, 4,098,060, 4,070,809, 4,065,912, 4,035,996, 4,019,308, 3,952,482, 3,950,924, 3,942,307, ES440418, DE2,536,333, GB1,427,930, GB1,424,511 and AU2,060,976.
The field of harvesting machines for sugar cane is extremely variable, including different solutions for small, medium-sized and large farmers. There are implements just to cut plants, others to cut and remove leaves, others that add complements to cut the plants into billets and others with resources to process residual straw. While there are many variations, one preponderant detail of said implements, whether they be large, medium-sized or small, is the fact that they perform cutting by rotating knives.
Implements intended just for cutting are usually considerably troublesome and, in addition to using rotating cutting knives, they have not been specifically developed for small, medium-sized and large producers.